Octavia looked back to the letter she had just finished writing. She placed it on her nightstand as if it was a delicate flower. It bore more meaning to her than she herself did, which was in fact setting the bar very low. Even with its world ending importance, the letter only held second in the list of things that were important to Octavia.
She looked at the bottle of anxiety pills again. Today was the day it had to be done. She was dead inside for more than a year now. Her music suffered, her career lost its appeal, and her precious cello left to sit in the corner of the room untouched for months. Octavia had been on the downhill for a great while now, but today she was going to make it stop. Today she reached the bottom of the valley that now made up her bleak self worth.
She realized she had been staring at the pills for a while now. It was not with fear she hesitated. No, the gentle embrace of an everlasting sleep was welcome to her torturous days. It was thoughts, memories, feelings, and an immense sense of loss that made her wait a bit, but they turned sour when she remembered.
She opened the bottle and hoofed the whole bottle of pills home. Then she laid down and rested…
Vinyl awoke to an incessant pounding at her door. Opening the blasted thing was a trick in of itself with all the dead bolts and chain catches she has installed to keep out a particularly persistent fan. With all the measures undone she wrenched the thing open and said with a husky hungover voice. “What the flying buck do you want at this time of the sun-bottom damned morning?!”
The officer at the door took this all patiently when he simply replied with an even. “It’s two thirty in the afternoon.”
Vinyl looked at him as if he had a peach for a head. “What?”
“Forgive me miss Vinyl Scratch, but I am going to need you to come down to the station with me.” Noticing her worried expression, he amended. “It’s not for anything you have done.” He turned to walk away and he signaled that she should follow.
The whole way over Vinyl kept asking what all this was for, but the simply stated eventually. “There will be enough time for that at the station.”
Canterlot city police headquarters, a subsidiary of the guards tasked with policing the citizenship, had a simple converted apartment building with a large blue shield on the front. It was a new idea after all and probably one of guard captain Shining Armor’s better ideas. Vinyl mused over how easy it used to be to get down to no good with just the guard. She didn’t hate the police ponies, but they did make certain activities more annoying than they should be.
The police pony led her to a room with one of those magic mirrors that were supposed that let others observe you without you knowing who they were. She huffed at the invasion of privacy. The guard must have picked up on this. “This room is the only one we have miss. I am sorry if you don’t like it.” He shut the door with a quiet goodbye.
Vinyl waited in the room walking around in a little circle around the table. She figured she could sit and wait, but then she would fidget. Moving was a necessity for her. Finally after was seemed like an hour from Vinyl’s impatient prospective the door opened.
The police pony that walked in was fat, but gave the aura that he knew a lot of ways to subdue ponies and not all of them were painless. “Hello Vinyl Scratch.” He started. “I am police chief Steel Helmet. Yes, that one, ex-guard captain Steel Helmet.” Vinyl was not going to ask such a thing and decided the polite thing to do would be to just nod.
Vinyl finally sat down, and Steel Helmet followed suit sitting across from her. “I am quite certain that you wish to know why you have been forcibly given the pleasure of my company today.” Vinyl gave him another nod.
“Well…” He started. “This is about Octavia.” Vinyl’s eyes went very wide. The cerise disks that made her pupils were almost gone.
“What about Octavia?” She asked breathing was becoming a bit of a chore already.
“Well, the mare did something incredibly stupid this morning… Well, I can get to that later. I think first you should read this.” Steel armor pulled out a letter with a electric blue envelope and tossed it across the table with a flick. The front of the envelope said Vinyl in the hoof written script of Octavia herself. Next to the name was a very neat quarter note.
Vinyl took a shallow breath that she intended to be much deeper and opened the note.
My Dearest Vinyl Scratch,
This letter must have come with some surprise to you, considering the environment that you must be in when reading it. After I walked away from us to pursue my career, regret does not even begin to describe my feelings on that. That is after all the subject of this letter. I more than simply regret my decision that day. When I decided that, my reputation and career were more important than you were. I am stalling because what comes next is hard for me, painful memories.
Vinyl looked over the hoof writing. It wasn’t forged. It even had that annoying thing where Octavia refused to use contractions.
It only took a week, I even looked for you to apologize, but the bouncer at the club told me he had specific orders not to let me anywhere near you. It was only fair I suppose I rejected you and you made me keep my word.
Over the coming months, everything started falling apart. My performances were becoming lackluster and ponies stopped attending. My appearance was the next to go. If you only could see me now, my rib cage poking out from my sides, my mane a mess, my eyes faded and with large circles around them, and to top it all off my bow tie…. I burned it in a fit of rage. You would not even recognize me, I hardly do myself.
The look on Vinyl’s face was of deep sorrow. She could see it, Octavia punishing herself physically in regret.
My mental state was a mirror of my physical. My emotions had been all over the place going from rage, depression, and delusional happiness. I have recently settled into a state of perpetual depression though. They have me on anti-anxiety medication… It is not really helping. I tell you this about me to let you know how much weight my words carry.
Vinyl, I miss you. There is an emptiness inside of me that cannot be filled now that I have torn you from my life. My whole life is consumed with the regret of what I did that day. After my last attempt to talk to you yesterday had failed. After you did not show up where we used to always meet in the café on my birthday, even though I sent you a letter urging you to show. I knew that I will never be forgiven, this letter is the last one I plan to ever write, because when I put this quill down I am going to take some pills and take a nap that I do not plan to wake from.
Goodbye Vinyl.
Love
Octavia
With teary eyes Vinyl looked at Steel Helmet. “Where is Octavia?” It had the phrasing of a question, but the weight of a command.
Steel Helmet to his credit had been quiet through the whole ordeal, when he spoke now though it was deep and with sympathy. “We’re going to take you to her now.” He got up and gestured out of the door. Vinyl followed him.
Steel Helmet led Vinyl out of the building, this time though when the trip took long Vinyl didn’t say a word. He led her to a hospital. Vinyl’s expression went glum when she recognized it as Gentle Touch memorial hospital.
Steel Helmet silently led them to the front desk where he just waved his badge and kept walking to a room on the first floor. “She’s in here.” Inside was Octavia looking to the entire world as if she was having a peaceful nap. Vinyl rushed over when she noticed Octavia was on a heart monitor. “You mean she’s alive?” Vinyl looked in disbelief and her voice was shaky.
“The paramedics got to her in time, after a neighbor of hers reported what had happened. The neighbor was never found for questioning.” Steel Helmet’s face frowned at that. “But whoever it was just saved her life.”
Vinyl couldn’t believe what was happening. Octavia, queen strength and determination herself had just tried to kill herself. It just didn’t seem real until she saw her sitting in that bed.
She wiped her face. “She was right, she looks so different…” Vinyl’s hoof traced the exposed ribs on Octavia’s side.
She looked at Steel Helmet. “What do I do…?”
Steel shook his head and replied. “Just talk to her. The unicorns tried to explain it all to me but it made no sense at all. I don’t really care what they have to say. I think just talking to her will help in some way.”
Vinyl sniffed loudly and nodded. “Octy… It’s me… Vinyl. I am here for you. Just wake up so we can go home…”
Author's Note
This, is the companion to Empty Audience my other OctaScratch story. Its another scene from a rocky life I imagine them having. The stories are seperate and don't need to be read together. This one deals with themes that a lot of people might not be comfortable with. Sucide is never the answer. Ever.
Also, I was perhaps too nice... orginally Octy wasn't going to survive. The pony/person/thing that saved Octy. That's whoever you want them to be.
Vinyl pushed open the door to the familiar house. This was Octavia’s house. She and Vinyl used to live here together, before that fight anyways. It was small but very well kept and in a good area. It looked… nothing like it used to.
Vinyl took in a deep breath to stabilize herself. Steel Helmet had advised her that to go here and see what she could find to maybe help Octavia. In the very least, it might provide some closure to her. She was starting to think it was a bad idea.
Looking around the house she saw things, little things, that wouldn’t be out of place if this was the house of some pony who was not, in fact, Octavia’s. The seats were scooted out of perfect symmetry. Octavia had a thing for everything in a room being symmetrical. That was noticed immediately upon entering the living area. There was dishes and a film of dust on the coffee table. This wasn’t normal for the mare that would get furious if anything was left on the coffee table overnight. Vinyl took a deep breath, before turning to the kitchen.
The sink was full of soiled plates and various cups, that was a completely foreign idea to her. Octavia would always insist that the day’s dishes were to be washed and put away. Vinyl had to calm down a bit before opening the fridge. She found nothing in there, and that was distressing. Octavia was always the type to have one more than needed of anything. For the fridge to be barren was just unnatural. She had to force herself to leave before she found anything else wrong.
Vinyl hesitated at the door to the bedroom. This was the bedroom they shared. This room no matter what stated it was going to be in this was going to be hard. She didn’t know if she even wanted to go in at all.
Vinyl continued to hesitate until Octavia’s bedroom alarm went off. That was at least right it was the ten o’clock. The alarm was never to wake Octavia up, no, she got in the habit of setting it to wake Vinyl up. Vinyl’s eyes got watery, but she made up her mind to go in.
Vinyl pushed open the door. It was all wrong. The bed not being made was to be a given. That was where they found Octavia after all. But the rest… The rest was completely unexpected. The layout of the room, which Octavia insisted on being rearranged every other month, hadn’t changed at all. Everything was in the same places as the last time Vinyl had seen the room. That wasn’t even the most distressing part. It was all broken…
At some point, Vinyl surmised, Octavia’s grief turned violent on herself. The mirror was shattered, the reading chair was smashed, the night stand and shelves looked like Octavia bucked them as hard as she could, and the worst was the cello. Octavia’s cello, it was undamaged, but it had a layer of dust on it that would have never ever been allowed to settle on it. It looked as if it hadn’t been moved not once in six months.
"This was a bad idea." Vinyl muttered as she took the rest of her strength to pull out a little book from between the mattress and the box spring. It was Octavia’s little secret that Vinyl never confessed to knowing. In hoofwritten lavender script the word Diary was written on the front cover.
Vinyl turned and left the house, not wanting to see the disturbing place any longer.
Vinyl entered Octavia’s room. She was given permission to stay with Octavia overnight. She still hadn’t woken up, but it wasn’t really expected that she would so soon. She walked over to Octavia and ran a hoof through her mane.
“What happened to you?” She knew where she could get those answers.
Vinyl pulled a chair up next to Octavia and opened the diary. Octavia was a nut about recording all of her thoughts and feelings. She knew just the page she had to read first.
October 15th,
I have broken up with Vinyl... it was hard. Very hard. I feel sick to my stomach and as if, there is an emptiness in me now. I had to do it. They were going to destroy both of our careers. I didn’t want to do it but Vinyl’s agent threatened to ruin her if I didn’t leave. Worst of all, I had to make Vinyl think it was what I wanted. I have my career at least... Perhaps I could just pour myself into work.
Octavia went on for the whole page but Vinyl had read enough. She was furious. Her agent was why they weren’t together. Her agent was why Octavia was in a spiral of self loathing that ended in her trying to kill herself? Vinyl seethed. It was hard for her not to just storm out of there right now, stick her hoof up Silver Star’s plot, and break it off at the knee. Then Vinyl remembered why she was here and looked down at Octavia’s face.
“Tomorrow.” Vinyl took a deep breath. “Tomorrow, I deal with that witch.” She laid her head down on Octavia’s bed and sung a little lullaby to her and Octy.
Author's Note
So, the one-shot continues. In a predictable way, but It'll be okay in the end trust me. These were always supposed to be little segments of life for these two. Inserted wherever your head cannon wanted. With this though, it starts to be a story all of its own. Please enjoy, rate, and comment. Stay tuned for chapter three.
